Hacker boot camp: Pass this and grab a 6-figure salary

Apr. 26, 2013 - 05:21PM
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A new breed of computer-programming school is proliferating in U.S. tech hubs. These “hacker boot camps” promise to teach students how to write code in two or three months and help them get hired as Web developers, with starting salaries between $80,000 and $100,000, often within days or weeks of graduation.

“We’re focused on extreme employability,” said Shereef Bishay, who co-founded San Francisco’s Dev Bootcamp 15 months ago. “Every single skill you learn here you’ll apply on your first day on the job.”

These intensive training programs are not cheap — charging $10,000 to $15,000 for programs running nine to 12 weeks — and they’re highly selective, typically only admitting 10 percent to 20 percent of applicants. And they’re called boot camps for a reason: Students can expect to work 80 to 100 hours a week, mostly writing code in teams under the guidance of experienced software developers.

The new schools say they are teaching students the real-world skills that employers want but colleges have failed to provide.